#like… we lost something

[dragonseeds]

maybe like four blogs ago i wrote the most insane book-focused meta about will as john the baptist and starling as a sacrificial christ figure who becomes one with god in a way john cannot and is absorbed in the process of her apotheosis—but the point is the story is about her and will’s only the forerunner, the prologue. like, i love hannibal the show and will graham is my favorite unhinged wet dog, but i’m still a little bitter starling’s story was dissected and given predominately to a male character instead of fuller just coming up with something unique for will and hannibal.

what’s most interesting to me about them has always been will’s fundamental inability to handle the work that he was asked to do and that everyone knew this but they kept asking because he’s so Special—whereas starling could handle it, being clever and hard-working and exceptional at compartmentalization, but was never allowed to do so because she wouldn’t compromise herself to get ahead. it’s stings because gender is precisely why they ended up where they did; the horror and violence of gender is so thematically significant and inextricable to the series for me. will caught hannibal almost by accident in the books. hannibal caught starling not by devising a trap for her or gaslighting her (that came later) but simply because the systemic misogyny she faced pushed her out of her career and her life, and her contempt for the corruption of system grew and grew and crystallized inside her until she was forced to make a choice—shoot the dirty cop or let hannibal be eaten by the pigs—and in making it she revealed the truth of herself: that she believed she was above the law, above the broken system, above the men who uphold it. that choice drove her straight to hannibal. he didn’t have to do anything at all to isolate her. she came for him; he just had to wait.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[lotus-pear]

mourning black and the death of ideals

[haliaiii]

reading up on argenti’s lore

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[boxheadpaint]

any recommendations for analog horror that isnt a slideshow with microsoft sam telling you DONT LOOK OUTSIDE. like something unique lately

[wildpiercy-art]

[edwinisms]

you ever think about how edwin got like. no warning, no time time to process, nothing, when he reappeared on earth faced with the fact that virtually everyone he knew in life is dead. his parents? probably died in the 1950s or so (at best) almost forty years prior to edwin’s return. if any of his classmates were still around, they’d have been elderly, possibly senile, and in a few years they’d all be gone– except, of course, edwin. nothing looks the same, cars look like spaceships, there actually are spaceships, he can no longer see the stars, and everyone he knew is dead.

[hazycorvus]

Back in the grasp of fate Lend me a hand Forever out of reach

[witchhazelevesque]

I just finished rereading The Lost Hero and here are some notable things and stuff I’d forgotten:

Will had a quiver of arrows on his back when the trio arrived at camp- so his characterization was changed for BoO

Mr. D left a veritable forest of grapevines in the living room ‘to remember him by’

All the Hephaestus kids have Murphy beds except for Beckendorf/ Leo

3 Hypnos kids

Rachel has a prophecy pit crew that get her a stool and take care of her when she swoons from oracle business

Annabeth made an oath on the Styx to Jason not to tell anyone yet about Thalia being his sister

Piper is a really quick thinker

Jason is very good at reading people

Leo wishes Madea goes back to the fields of punishment “where she belonged” (resentful lil guy 💕)

Leo DID get to attend his mother’s funeral, glad to hear

In the 5th grade Leo made a ‘steam powered chicken chucker’ as a science project (precursor to the chicken nugget smoke screen mayhaps)

At least 12 Hephaestus kids at camp

At this point summoning lightning almost makes Jason pass out

There’s a parallel of Lityerses not being able to beat Jason’s Roman style sword fighting and the Romans not knowing how to combat Percy’s Greek style in SoN

Jason jokingly calls someone ‘General Eisenhower’, so a hint about him having military knowledge and knowing it so well he uses it as insults/jokes

He recognizes TV news broadcasts, so he prob watches those

Jason vaguely recognizes Piper’s dad in a picture because he has seen him in some movies

Piper calls Hedge by his first name by the end?? Leo uses Tempest as a power source- just plugs an electric saw into him and vroom vroom

Jason fought two different giants in the same day and both times literally went “guess I’ll die”

Jason refers to himself a praetor of the First Legion, though it is officially called the Twelfth Legion. Unclear if this is a mistake/ oversight or if it relates to Jason’s desire to change the Legion’s name that is later mentioned in SoN. Probably a mistake since it’s not brought up again to clear it up

Jason got back most of his memories, except for the location of Camp Jupiter (or the name actually)

Piper sleeps (at least once) with her dagger under her pillow

There’s a reference to 2009 and 2010 Party Ponies events

Hedge is Piper’s dad’s life coach

Piper tells Jason she’d follow him anywhere, paralleling how Frank later says he’d follow Percy anywhere

Chiron calls Lupa his ‘counterpart’

Leo was the one to figure out that Jason and Percy had been exchanged by Hera but then the story makes him forget this by the end to let Jason be the one to explicitly deliver that info??

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 232

Once more thinkin of These Series of AU/Prompts, where the Class pulls a Tiamat. Becomes Giant Hydra Dragon. But with some inspiration from @radiance1's Blob King AUs. Specifically also the dragon ones.

Now, the nine of them are admittedly far older than they once were. Far older than most of the people outside the cage they were tricked into all those years before, exhaustion seeping into their bones as their ectoplasm was siphoned away.

Yet no matter how much the GIW drains away- if they're even called as such anymore- they never run out. If anything, at least from what they've noticed, unable to do much of anything else in this pit, this tank of green and red, they seem to be making more.

Their recollection of being separate, of having separate bodies have long since slipped away in exchange for keeping memories of their families and friends long gone now. Perhaps they're in the zone, as ghosts, but perhaps not.

Days feel like both seconds and years, words falling away as their Core hums as one. Sometimes a Blob ghost manages to find its way inside- the trap designed not to stop things from getting in, but to prevent them from leaving.

They always disappear whenever the ecto is taken away, not having enough to continue holding on to a physical form. But... the blobs don't stay gone. Their own ecto brings them back, tiny forms almost mimicking their own.

It's something to distract them, something to actually do besides growl at the figures beyond the barriers around them. The blobs don't speak, don't make more than squeaks, but it's something. Almost like dozens of toddlers floating around, becoming more and more draconic in shape with every siphon.

Do their captors realize, they wonder, how they've made them all stronger than they were even before? Do they realize what they've done, creating this loop of ever-growing power?

No, Star giggled, pink and gold scales shimmering as she bobbed her head in amusement, Paulina's darker purples following.

They don't know, Wes agreed, dark amusement echoed by both Sam and Dash, fangs flashing amidst the liquid. The trap would not be able to contain them for much longer, they all knew. They could feel it, how the siphon stuttered with every run.

It wouldn't be long now. They had waited three hundred years for the chance to escape- they could wait for a few days more.

...

Though they won't complain about an early prison break if those alarms are anything to go by.

[intotheelliwoods]

What was that about One falling asleep whenever he can and feels comfortable enough because the boy needs it? Hm? Something about him feeling safe around Poptart and not needing to keep his guard up was it? @dianagj-art *uses your own tags against you*

[pastafossa]

I love you guys. I hope you know that.

Like.

Ok so I posted the new TRT chapter the other day. Obviously. And I had to force myself to do it, to click that final, 'post' button because at that last moment, this big wave of imposter syndrome hit (that had already hit on and off as I'd started working on the chapter again). And it was just this cycle of, 'It's been like 6 months since you posted a chapter or anything other than a couple one-shots and you're out of practice, I bet it's bad, it's probably terrible, I bet everyone's left and no one cares about this thing you love so why do you? What if no one likes it, you're gonna drop this and everyone's gonna god 'wtf is this, pasta? what happened?'' And so I forced myself to post it, took my meds to ensure I slept, and then kinda just bunkered down and slept/hid because I was halfway convinced that all the trauma in the previous six months had just bopped any ability I had to write.

Instead I got this outpouring, of just like, 'WELCOME BACK' and people telling me they're happy that mom is ok (which made me cry but in a good way) and they're sorry Cato passed away (more tears, but comforted tears), but also delightful jokes about the funny lines I put in or screaming over that romantic line or about missing Jane and the dynamics and comments about being eager for the next chapter, and how now I can be one of those AO3 authors with those notes of 'yeah my life blew up so I was delayed, but hey I'm back!' which... yeah. And much like when I first started TRT, I didn't... really expect that at all, and it's made me really emotional.

So if you've dropped into my ask box or the comments or the replies, seriously, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, because the excitement and love and just you all being the best little fam and continuing on this journey of TRT with me - a journey that has now included both Matt and Jane's journey, and a real life journey through a pandemic, a huge move, a passing of two of my pets, my mom's hospitalization and recovery, some heart issues, the cancellation and resurrection of the show, me meeting Charlie Cox and getting him to hold a red thread, my first wood carving event, etc - and I know I say this a lot, but you all really, really help me keep going when things get hard. I'd write TRT for nothing, I would, because I love this story and I intend to see it through, but ya'll just... I love you all tons. I'm hoping to get through the asks and fic comments and replies in the next few days, but I just wanted you guys to know that.

[famousinfamous]

Dex: *breaks into the registery files aka supposedly the one of the highest security databases in the whole world and while he’s doing it breaks into all the other intelligent species networks as well. Supposedly manifests at twelve but he says he’s always been good with gadgets so he probably manifested before that. Manages to restrict the abilities of a literal super elf who was ‘made’ by some on the smartest elves and gnomes to ever exist (they spent years ‘making’ her by the way.) does this all before he turns 14* litterally everyone in the series: yeah that seems normal

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

"Laughing stock" can be their ship name ;)

OHHHHH GALAXY BRAIN thats so good omg. LaughingStock my beloved <3

[mintaikk]

"Romance if you're into it, horror if you're not," also known as, "reading Symbrock fanfiction"